15 Best Exit Interview Questions to Ask Employees

It is of utmost importance to follow a proper exit process whenever your company’s employee leaves the job. It helps you to avail a systematic process while preventing perplexing situations.

You bid farewell to your employee, who soon gains the tag of a former worker in your company. Along with this, it is also crucial that you gain the words from your employees about their experiences of their job journey. That’s where you need to consider the exit interview questions that you must ask before departing employees.

What Does Exit Interview Mean?

An exit interview is a process conducted with an employee who is preparing to leave the company. In this, HR discusses the employee’s experience regarding his employment journey with the company. It also includes asking for feedback from employees about the organization’s improvement.

Why Are Exit Interviews So Valuable?

Exit interviews are crucial because they help the management team figure out the actual situation of the company. By asking for feedback from employees, management is able to find the real problem that compels employees to leave the organization. That means, a company gets the key factors to refine things, and employee retention is enhanced.

Following are the reasons to opt for exiting the interview process

• Detecting problems in the employee life cycle.
• Reducing employee turnover consumes the company’s money and time in new hiring.
• Leveling up the organization’s culture and enhancing open communication and the employees’ experience.
• The interview process gives a lucid landscape of the strengths and shortcomings.

15 Best Exit Interview Questions Not to Ignore

There are certain questions that the HR team considers for the exit process. Here we will introduce you to the 15 best exit interview questions that you must ask your employee before his or her last working day.

1. What Is the Major Reason for Leaving the Company?

This question is helpful to identify the actual reason behind the decision to leave the current organization. You must take proper feedback and make an employee comfortable speaking up properly. It is for sure, you’ll get points where improvement is necessary to retain employees.

2. How Was Your Experience With Your Manager or Senior?

This is a common scenario in many companies where employees have a bitter relationship with their managers or seniors. This contributes to making a mind to leave the job.

You can directly discuss the issues with higher-profile employees in case of negative feedback. However, also, there can be positive feedback on them. In that case, you can motivate other workers by using it as an example.

3. How Was Your Experience With Our Company’s Culture?

Every company has its own set of defined cultures. Every employee has a different comfort zone. It’s not necessary that every individual fits in your company’s culture. You must discuss the social dynamics, working conditions, work environment, and other values.

4. Did You Feel That Your Contribution Has Given Value?

This is a valuable question to include in an exit interview. Recognizing and giving value to the employee’s contribution is crucial for employee retention. This question helps identify the areas of improvement in the management process.

5. Will You Recommend This Company to Others? If Yes, Why, and if No, Why?

This exit process question covers negative and positive dimensions of the company. The response will reflect the employee’s overall employee experience with the organization. The negative feedback will be helpful for the company to think about the issues from the employee’s point of view and make an improvement in the same.

6. Did the Company Provide All the Tools and Resources for Your Job?

Inquire whether your employees have access to the necessary resources, as this is crucial for the success of the company. It will be alarming on your management process If the employee’s remark or response is negative with a dissatisfactory answer. Therefore, always ask this to your exiting.

7. Elaborate the Best Part of Your Job.

There are specific situations where your employee performs exceptionally well. Before departing an employee, you must ask your employee about the best part of their job when they enjoy it a lot.

8. Elaborate the Worst Part of Your Job.

Each employee may have a unique response to this question. There might be a situation when your employee had a bad experience as a part of his job. In such a case, you must ask employees to uncover the truth.

9. Did Your Job Role Ever Change From the Time of Your Hiring? If Yes Then in What Ways?

This question will prevent candidates’ unrealistic expectations. It happens many times that major changes take place in the job role from the time of recruitment. If such things happen, it is your responsibility to update the job description before hiring. This ensures high transparency throughout the recruitment process for the future employees.

10. What Changes Would You Like to Introduce in Our Company?

It’s not a big deal to ask for suggestions from your employees about the changes required in the organization.

Remember, your employee has spent a certain period and might have faced challenges during the work. It might be the work environment, facilities, work-life balance, or culture. Asking this question is helpful for a company to figure out the core reasons behind leaving the job.

11. Would You Like to Rejoin Our Company Again if You Get the Chance?

This is another one of the crucial and right exit interview questions to ask. Many people leave their jobs due to better opportunities and other circumstances. However, in some cases, employees come back to rejoin the company. Ask your employees about their opinion on it. If an employee is willing to rejoin the company there might be a chance to hire again if you didn’t get the ideal person for replacement.

12. Do You Feel the Company Helps You in Upgrading Your Knowledge or Providing Additional Training?

Now, this is another one of the most important questions that you must ask your employees. By including this question in your exit interview template, you will get an idea about how your company is helping candidates in making a career. If the candidate’s answer is yes, promote these resources to the team. If the candidate’s answer is No then start thinking to integrate the necessary strategy that enhances the candidate’s career (online training or online course).

13. Have You Found It Difficult to Understand Any Company’s Policy?

Including this question helps enhance transparency. Employees can openly speak about unclear company policies. Additionally, it benefits the company by providing an opportunity to assess the policy. Management can modify the policy if anything perplexes the situation.

14. What Are Your Expectations for Your New Job?

This question is very helpful to you in knowing in what sense your company lacks to retain employees. There is something that attracts candidates to accept new opportunities. It might be anything like a better salary package, promotion, or other facilities and benefits package. Urge your employees to openly state key points.

15. Is There Anything Else You Would Like to Share Additionally?

This is the terminating scenario of your sample exit interview questions. In this way, you are giving the last chance to your employee to share their views.

Best Practices for Conducting Effective Exit Interviews

The exit interview process is important for a company. Therefore, the management team should conduct it effectively. Here are the best traditions you must follow.

• Interview in a safe place to keep valuable feedback highly confidential.
• The interviewer should be neutral and encourage the candidate to speak honestly without any hesitation.
• Keep all interruptions aside and keep focusing on the employee’s answer.
• Allow employees to share their thoughts freely.
• It is better to review exit interview data regularly.
• Always end the interview with gratitude towards the employee for the contribution he or she made to the organization.

Transforming Exits into a Lucky Break

Exit interviews are not a part of formality. It is more than this that helps organizations gain proper insight into the company’s culture and employees’ feelings. It is again helping in uncovering hidden opportunities and taking the right steps for the company’s growth opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions